Bring Back the Sun
by mooyoo
Summary: The last day of Lincoln Burrow's life.
1. Bring Back the Sun

**Title:** Bring Back the Sun  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** The last day of Lincoln Burrows' life (part 1).  
**Author's Notes:** I started this after watching the previews following ep. 13 (yes, I watched them in slow-motion several times), but I don't read spoilers, so aside from the one brief bit of a scene I caught, there's nothing spoilery beyond the first 13 eps and anything unrecognizable (like Sara's family stuff) is totally made up.

Sara's father has tried calling her several times already today to tell her that he'll be there this evening, trying her at home, on her cell phone, and twice in her office, but she's ignored them all, afraid of the inevitable fight that would result if she spoke to him. She cynically wonders if he's going to want her to pose with him for the press: the Good Doctor / Governor's daughter who will be pronouncing the murderer dead, standing alongside the figurehead of the state putting him to death; a tag-team of Tancredi killers, she thinks bitterly, and knows that this is going to be a miserable, miserable day.

She walks into the exam room to find Michael standing with his back to the door, staring out the barred window, and realizes that it'll probably be a much worse day for him, though he has yet to give any indication of that possibility. It takes a few calls of his name for him to turn around, and when he does she can tell immediately that his attention is elsewhere. She asks him to sit down and he falls heavily into the chair in front of hers, unconsciously offering up his arm.

Sara looks at him for a moment, hating the feeling that she's once again being drawn into his world, and says, "How're you feeling today?" then mentally kicks herself for such stupid words.

He doesn't reply and makes no move to look at her as she pricks his finger and then begins readying the needle, irritating her with his disinterest. She's sick of his non-answers, sick of his cryptic words, sick even more of his outright lies and the feeling that he's playing her, like she's some part of a game of his. But she must be a masochist, because she keeps talking, feeling like she can't control her mouth.

"Look, I know you've turned down this offer before, but I wanted you to know… I'll be here all day – I have to… be there tonight – if you want to talk at all. I know that this must be…"

She glances up at him, realizing that he's still not looking at her, and drops the hand holding the needle to her lap.

"Michael, have you heard anything I've said?"

He looks up at her and blinks, like he's just seeing her for the first time. "What?"

She looks at him and thinks maybe she's seeing him for the first time as well, because she's suddenly noticing how haggard and drained he looks. It's such a contrast to yesterday, when he was bizarrely calm, if a little fatalistic – charming, flirtatious, like he didn't even notice what was coming up today. But today he's pale and his shoulders are slumped and she sees dark circles under his eyes for the first time, and she wonders what's changed since yesterday. He looks like his brother's already dead.

"When was the last time you had some sleep?"

He gives a small burst of laughter and shakes his head for a moment, like he's going to deny it. "I don't, uh… a couple days ago," he admits finally, a sheepish expression flitting across his face.

"Uh huh," she nods and looks down for a moment.

She knows he must be tense, anxious, distracted by his brother's execution at the end of the day, but she's disturbed by the dramatic change in his mood – his whole presence really – from yesterday, when he was at least speaking to her. Today he doesn't smile, doesn't joke, doesn't flirt, barely speaks. She's told herself that it'd be so much easier to be rational about him, to treat him as just one of the hundreds of prisoners in here, if he didn't try to chat with her. But his sudden silence is unnerving, and the anger that's been simmering in the pit of her stomach for the past week is pushed aside at the bleak look in his eyes.

"I know that this must be hard for you… impossible." She shakes her head and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear nervously. "But you've got to take care of yourself. You can't… not sleep, not eat. _Especially_ in a place like this – you have to take care of yourself," she says again, wondering when she started sounding like a fussy teacher. She wonders why she continues to care so much about him. It's like an involuntary tick at this point that she can't turn off.

Michael doesn't say anything but gives her his steely gaze, so at least she knows he's listening. She holds his arm and tries to be gentle as she jabs the needle into it.

"Have you been able to see him at all?"

He shakes his head, trying to look nonchalant and for once failing. "They won't let me."

"I could talk to the Warden if you like, maybe you could spend some more time with him this afternoon, before – "

Michael quickly shakes his head, looking down with an odd half-smile that fades quickly as his mouth forms a tight line. "That's okay."

Sara stares at him, hard, until he glances up at her and then away quickly, mumbling "I can't, um – I don't know if I can see him…"

"Why?" she asks and doesn't bother trying to hide the confusion and tinge of anger in her voice. She's hit with a sharp memory of her mother, who was killed in a car accident several years ago. It's something she thinks about often, especially today – especially when there is a man in front of her who confuses her constantly, who is making a decision that completely baffles her, and she wants to understand why.

Michael pushes his chair back a few inches to put some space between them and she feels a little guilty when he won't meet her eyes. His appointment is technically over and she can tell he wants to leave, but she's not going to let him escape just yet, not without giving her some sort of clarification. She's not sure why this strikes her as such a personal affront, but she's missing her mother terribly today and Michael's constant disinterest in the reality of his situation is making her angry.

"I don't know if I can do it," he finally murmurs. "I don't know if I can talk to him, touch him, knowing it's the last time."

There's always been something between the two of them, Sara thinks, but at the moment it feels more like a wall than a attraction. She didn't get a chance to say goodbye to her mother, and if they were friends she'd tell him so. As it is, she just looks at him for a moment "I think you should reconsider."

"I'll be there tonight, right before" he tells her quietly, still not looking at her. "He'd never forgive me if I didn't see him, uh…" The rest of the words are lost as he seems to realize what he's said, and he rubs his forehead for a moment.

She hurts a little for him when she sees him like this, still holding on to his cool detachment but letting honest words (honest, she's _sure_ they're honest) spill out of his mouth with pale, grim eyes that suggest maybe he is aware of what's happening today. And she's still holding onto his arm, despite the distance he's tried to put between them, and it was stupid to hold on, not to let go when she was forced to stretch it to reach him (why, _why_ didn't she let go?) but she didn't let go, and now she can't. She can feel the muscles twitching under her fingers, and he's finally looking at her now, and she can't let him throw away an opportunity she's trying to give him.

"You have to see him, Michael," she says, trying to sound sympathetic. Their eyes are locked together, and she could be fooling herself, but she thinks maybe she sees some understanding in his, like he knows why it's so important to her. "This is the – "

"Dr. Tancredi," a nurse bursts through the door, interrupting her, and the moment is gone. "There's a phone call for you."

"Thanks, um, take a message please," Sara tosses back over her shoulder, dropping his arm to twist around, and when she turns back, Michael is standing, pulling down his sleeve.

"Are we done?" he asks, and she knows what he means is _We're done_. So she nods and lets him walk past her and out the door, because there's nothing else she can do.

This is going to be a miserable day.


	2. On Fire

**Title:** On Fire  
**Fandom:** Prison Break  
**Characters:** Michael, Lincoln, Sara  
**Prompt:** 084, He.  
**Word Count:** 4,295  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** The last day of Lincoln Burrows' life (part 2 of 3)  
**Author's Notes: **I started this after watching the previews following ep. 13 (yes, I watched them in slow-motion several times), but aside from the one brief bit of a scene I caught, there's nothing spoilery beyond the first 13 eps and anything unrecognizable (like Sara's family stuff) is totally made up. Also, this part is wicked long, I have no idea how that happened. They just kept talking and talking and all of a sudden it was 10 pages long and I had to cut some out. So, yeah, hopefully it's not tedious or anything.

"All set," the guard tells her, and Sara walks into the dank cell towards the condemned man. All the foolishness she's felt at this part of her job, at this ridiculous thing she has to do – determine whether or not a man is healthy enough to kill – quickly evaporates when she sees Lincoln sitting on the bed with his knees drawn up as far as the chains running across the floor will allow, hands splayed across the top of his head. His eyes are closed and remain that way until Sara's pulled a chair over beside the bed.

He looks completely exhausted, but flashes her the briefest of smiles and sounds distantly like his brother when he says, "Hey, Doc."

The words are laced with charm, but it fades from him quickly when she doesn't smile back.

This is the last physical exam he'll receive before this evening. The last he'll receive of his life. The thought makes her sick to her stomach, so she pushes it out of her mind and takes out her clipboard and pen and tries to stick to the exam.

"How've you been feeling?" she asks him as she begins to jot down notes on the clipboard. "Your stomach okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," he says easily, but with a shaky breath out that belies the flippant words. "All better."

He's moody, alternately chirpy and soft-spoken, but bizarrely responsive throughout her questions and tests, which she didn't really expect from him, especially today. It's easy, for a while at least, to pretend that this is a normal day, but there's a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach that grows with each question, each test she goes over with him.

"Well," she sighs finally. "Mild food poisoning aside, you seem to be in pretty good health. Your blood pressure is a little high, but that's, um – that's understandable." She stumbles over the words and looks down uncomfortably.

He gives a short laugh and she looks back up at him. She knows she should say something else, but this is not a scenario they ever went over in med school, and this is the first time she's ever spoken to a dying man in nearly perfect health.

"I'm sorry," she settles on finally. Short, to the point, mildly condescending, but it's honest, and he seems like a decent enough person – for a murderer, she reminds herself – to not hold it against her. "I wish there was something else I could do."

The corner of his mouth tips up and he moves his feet to the floor, hands falling into his lap. "S'alright. Not much you can do. Anyway, I'm not really scared or anything. I'm pretty, you know, okay with things at this point."

She gives him a shrewd look. "That's not true, is it?" It's a statement, not a question, and he laughs again in response.

"No, not really." There's a long pause that makes her stomach hurt again, reminding her of the nauseous ache she couldn't seem to get rid of in the days following her mother's death.

"Just, you know, uh… not knowing what's gonna happen in a few hours. After, I mean."

Her brow furrows and he tries to clarify.

"Weird to think I won't be here tomorrow." His voice breaks a bit at the end of the sentence and she's briefly afraid that he might start crying – she has no idea how she would react to that, and she wonders at how easily he's sharing this with her. But he goes on steadily. "I'm… I don't know what's going to happen, where… what happens to you when you die, that's…" He shakes his head and trails off.

Sara doesn't always hate her job, but some days she wishes she'd gone to veterinary school.

"Been thinking about suicide bombers a lot the past couple days."

She cocks her head back, shocked at the non sequitur and, frankly, rather bizarre statement. "I'm sorry?" she asks, confused.

He laughs briefly but with little mirth. "Yeah, I know, that sounds really screwed up, huh? But it's these guys. They just wake up one day, have breakfast, go out and… blow themselves up. They wake up knowing that it's gonna be their last day alive. I don't get that, you know?"

She nods, starting to understand what he's getting at now, though in a rather strange way. Regardless, she's glad he's talking and hopes he'll continue – he's the first inmate to talk to her sincerely in… ever? Certainly for a long time, at least, and while she's vaguely aware that he's probably talking more to talk, that his diatribe has little to do with her personally, she's happy – relatively speaking – to be able to do something for him, even if it's just sitting here with him for a while.

"I read this story in the paper once, 'bout these two guys in… Iraq or… I don't know, one of those places over there. These guys, they just went to a café, sat outside and drank tea, talked for like an hour or something. Then one of 'um gets up walks down the street, blows himself up."

It's a startling story, and it scares her a little bit that this is what the man is thinking about so close to his execution.

"And I keep thinking about that… about this guy, sitting there talking… drinking tea… knowing that he's about to die. "I mean, how'd he do that? Just…" And he trails off again, looking a little lost in the thought.

"From what I understand," she says. "These people have very strong beliefs about… religion, the afterlife…"

This breaks him out of his daze and he turns to look at her again with wide eyes, as if excited by her understanding. "Yeah, yeah. That's what I… I mean, to have that kind of… absolute faith in something, in God and heaven – or, you know, whatever they call life after death… to just know for certain what's coming after you die, I wish I had that."

She nods hesitantly and he quickly clarifies. "I mean, you know, I don't _like_ what they do, terrorists, that's just…" He shakes his head while he searches for the word and can't come up with anything more articulate than, "…evil. Horrible, awful, I don't…" It almost makes her laugh, listening to a convicted murderer speak as if he's afraid she'll think him a terrorist. But, she supposes, they are very different acts with different intentions even, and she guesses that's probably not how he'd like to be remembered, even though he'll still be remembered for killing someone.

"But I almost wish that I had that same faith, that I knew for certain what would… what's coming after. It'd make some of this thing a lot less… scary," he finally says, his face falling a bit before he shrugs off the despondent look and tries to replace the charm. "Don't tell anyone I said that," he warns with a half-smile.

"What, that you're scared of dying?"

"Yeah," he chuckles dejectedly.

"Do you believe in any of that?" she asks. "'God and heaven or whatever'?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, I do. Haven't gone to church regularly since I was a kid, before I got in here, before I knew what was gonna happen. Been going to services, talking to the chaplin a lot, and it… helps some, thinking about things – things I've done in my life, having someone say… it's okay, I'm forgiven – that God forgives me and will take care of me. Makes it seem a little less…" The sentence fades away into the stale air between them, but she knows what he means and it makes her heart hurt a little bit.

It makes her wonder what her mother would've said or thought about if she'd known her death was coming. Her mother was a very different person from this man – in so many ways, not the least of which is the fact that she never killed anyone, save one of Sara's goldfish when she was six, but that was purely accidental. She wonders if her mother would've prayed, talked to God, asked for forgiveness for anything she did wrong in her life. They were told that she died immediately, so Sara knows that she shouldn't assume that her mother had any idea what was about to happen. But the knowledge doesn't stop her from wondering about her mother's last moments – did she see the other car coming just before it slammed into her own? Did she realize that these were her last moments of life? Was she scared? It occurs to Sara that she doesn't even know if her mother believed in God, as their family was never particularly religious, and now she wonders if her mother was more scared of the car coming straight for her, or what might happen after it ripped her body apart.

She tries not to tear up, but the subject in front of her is just as hard to face as thoughts of her mother. Lincoln moves to brace an arm on the bed and Sara notices the broken rosary lying next to his hand.

"What happened there?" She nods to the rosary and he looks down at it for a moment before picking it up to turn the crucifix over in his hands, chewing on the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah, my brother gave it to me. I must've… dropped it or something…"

She can't help but smile at that. "You know, he doesn't really strike me as the religious type for some reason." She hates that she still – and so obviously – is fishing for information about the younger brother, but when the opportunity is presented so conveniently in front of her, with only one small statement necessary for more, it's hard not to give in to her ridiculous addiction to Michael and give a tiny push. After all, she tells herself in the midst of alternately berating her weakness when it comes to Michael and trying to assuage her guilt over vaguely using Lincoln during his last hours, she's glad he's been so open with her and wants him to keep talking.

"He's not," Lincoln agrees, nodding. "I think he thought it'd…" With a sad smile that she doesn't understand, he takes a long pause, apparently searching for words. "…Make me feel better, I guess."

The smile quickly fades and his mouth settles into a frown as his eyes turn to the floor. He continues after another long pause, speaking slowly like he's thinking around the words. "Yeah, he was never much into any of that. Stopped going to church after my mom died."

"You think he… lost his faith after your mother died?"

He shrugs and cocks his head to the side. "Don't know really. Maybe. I always figured it was just 'cause she wasn't there anymore to make him go. But maybe he stopped 'cause she died, I don't know… I asked him once, a little while after, if he believed in God. He said no, he has faith in people, not an abstract idea."

Sara tries to hide the smile that's forcing it's way to her lips.

"I don't know why I remember that," Lincoln says quietly. "He says a lot of stupid shit that I don't even think about. Don't know why that one stuck with me."

"That makes sense, though, I guess, for someone like him."

He blinks at her and asks, "'Someone like him'?"

"He seems – from what I know of him – seems like an optimistic kind of person. Talked to me once again having faith. But he also seems like someone with… very concrete thinking, like he'd need proof of things to believe. It just struck me as interesting, especially considering – considering…"

He nods, regarding her for a moment, and then says, "Guess so. I'm worried, though, 'bout what this'll do to him. If he'll be okay after. He's been…" He shakes his head and trails off, his eyes wandering around the room looking lost once again.

"He was there when my mom died. In the room with her." She's once again surprised by his non sequitur but he doesn't notice it and keeps speaking, gesturing with one of his hands as he does.

"She was in the hospital the last few days. We knew it was coming, but we thought it'd be a few more weeks, a month maybe. This one afternoon I went out for a smoke."

She raises her eyebrows at this, eyes wide despite her best efforts to remain nonjudgmental. He looks at her and laughs.

"Yeah, I know. I started my… self-destructive ways pretty early."

That's much more self-aware than she expected from a man like him, one who seems to act quickly and without much thought, from what she's heard of him. There's such a strange division between the things he's done – robbery, drugs, assault, murder – and the generally quiet, sad demeanor he holds when she speaks to him. But, she supposes, he's had little to do in here for the last few years, and the last few months leading up to his execution date especially, besides sit and think. And she remembers a conversation with Michael that seems like so long ago now. _My brother said that fear isn't real, it's just…air, not even that…_ It was strange, when she first met Lincoln, to think that such a violent man could be so quiet and reflective, but now she's starting to think that it's strange that such a quiet and reflective man could be so violent.

"So I left Michael there with my mom," Lincoln continues, oblivious to Sara's conflicting opinions of him. "I'm gone maybe… twenty minutes, half-hour. I come back, and… She's just lying there, eyes closed. Looked like she was sleeping, almost, 'cept that heart monitor thing was doing that one long _beeeeeeep_."

She's starting to feel nauseous again, and suddenly doesn't want to hear any more, almost wishes he would stop talking altogether. She feels guilty, like she's intruding on a private moment and shouldn't be listening to such a personal story, especially as he's not even looking at her anymore; he looks like he doesn't even notice she's still there in front of him, that he's revealing such a story to a near stranger. She knows the reason he's still talking is because she asked him to, pressed him ever so slightly about Michael, and it makes her feel even worse, knowing that she's still hopelessly entangled with the younger brother, with both of them now in fact, in a way she swore to herself she wouldn't be.

"Guess it'd just happened, 'cause no one'd come in yet," Lincoln continues, eyes narrow. He draws his knees up on the bed again and rests his folded arms across them, looking almost defensive as he relates the rest of what must be a painful memory. "But Michael, he's just sitting there, curled up in a chair with his head on the bed next to her. Wasn't crying or anything, just… sitting there, holding her hand." He takes a long pause and she thinks of the phone call from her father on that sunny afternoon, how his voice broke in a way she'd never heard from him before when he said _Mom was in an accident…_

"He looked so small. He never looked that small before."

Images form in her mind of little-boy Michael, borne out her quiet experiences with him, when he speaks softly, his voice thick and eyes steady. It reminds her of the day he was brought into the infirmary down two toes, looking scared and lost and, for a moment, every bit a small beaten up kid on the playground, and she can picture a small boy clinging to his mother quietly as she died. She wonders what it'll be like for him to go through it again; trying to hold onto someone he loves when there's nothing he can do but watch him die.

"He's a strong guy," she says, speaking as much to herself as Lincoln, trying to calm her own fears along with those she's sure he's feeling.

"Yeah," Lincoln nods. "You wouldn't really know it to look at him, but he's, you know… he's been through a lot of shit, from a lot of people. Including me. And he's smart, so smart, been smarter than me since he was twelve. But that's not much of a feat," he says, and chuckles at his own joke. She smiles as well, happy to see the genuine laughter and pride from him.

His smile changes after a moment to a grin that shows off most of his teeth, while his eyes narrow.

"Why're you so interested in my brother, anyway?" he asks with a suspiciousness to his expression that he doesn't try to hide.

She looks up at him sharply, alarmed, feeling suddenly caught but hoping it doesn't show. "What? No, I'm not – "

"Yeah, you are," he cuts her off before she can fully deny it. "You've asked me about him before, too. What's got you so interested in 'im, huh?" He raises an eyebrow at her in mock reproach and she knows it's all over, she might as well confess.

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "I'm trying to distance myself from him, not get too… involved, but there's something about him…"

"It's the eyes, right?" He smiles knowingly and she blushes, rolling her eyes in an effort to hide it. "They're killers, those things. I don't think he's ever noticed it, but girls just love 'um."

She laughs, though part of her wishes she could crawl into a hole and die. "I'm not sure I can see that, actually. He's always trying to lay on the charm with me – I'm not even sure he means any of it, or if it's just because I'm one of the only women around."

"Really?" Lincoln seems genuinely surprised by this. "Huh. Don't worry, though, I think he likes you too."

She has to look away from him now and hates herself for the smile that she's hopeless to bury. "I think he'd be mortified to hear you say that."

"Eh, s'alright," he says with a shrug and a wave of his hand. "He's used to it. And I won't be around much longer for him to bitch at anyway, so…"

He's still smiling, but the statement sobers her immediately, throwing her violently back into the moment as she realizes how ridiculous this conversation has become under the circumstances. She's amazed at how easily the murderer in front of her who's going to be killed in a few hours is able to vacillate between morbid and depressed to light, almost youthful, telling her _he likes you too_ as if they're in junior high and he's playing matchmaker for his little brother. She wonders again at the multiple personalities both men seem to possess.

She brings the conversation back to the original topic and says simply, no longer smiling, "I just want to understand him."

"But why him?" Lincoln asks and, while a valid question, one she's asked herself several times before, she's not sure how to answer it. "There's tons of guys in here, why so focused on him?"

She's looking him in the eye, and he seems more speculative now than curious, with a hard stare more startling than even Michael's. He looks almost cautious, deep lines in his forehead now, like he's wary of her interest in his brother, concerned maybe that it's genuine attraction and not something that will hurt Michael or be used against him.

She shrugs, not sure how to respond and her tongue trips over the words as she tries to work out her thoughts. "I don't – he's not like… he saved my life. During the riot, he… he rescued me," she says, feeling faintly ridiculous for the Damsel-in-Distress-like words, but it's the truth.

"Really?" He looks surprised once again at hearing something from her about his brother. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and he beams at her, the caution fading from him instantly.

"I was… stuck in the infirmary. He came and found me."

She doesn't elaborate, hates even thinking about it most of the time, and that's all he really needs to know anyway about how close she came to being raped and probably killed.

"Most of the other men in this place… maybe all of them, they'd have left me there, or – but he didn't. There's that and there's… he says things to me sometimes that just don't mesh with this place, with what he's done. He acts like two different people sometimes. I want to understand that."

And that's the best she can do to explain it.

"He never told me that," Lincoln says, a mixture of pride and fascination in his widened eyes and tilted head. "Believe it or not, that's probably closer to the real Michael than you realize – trying to help you and all."

She wants to believe that, and she did at one point. But then he lied to her, and he pushed her away when she tried to help, and she found out he was married, and things changed between them. She's learned more about Michael in the past 30 minutes from his brother than in more than a month of daily meetings with him, and that makes it hard for her to trust him.

"He's always been like that, and I really don't get him sometimes," Lincoln continues. "He's always… there was this one time when we were kids, I think he was seven or eight or something, and we're walking home from school. We're stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, when he suddenly just takes off across the street." He slaps his hands together for emphasis and the sound echoes through the dark cell.

"Turns out he saw a damn stray cat hiding by some parked cars across the street, was afraid it'd get hurt. So he just ran out there, dodging cars and stuff. Like he didn't think they'd touch him. Either that of he didn't care. God, I kicked his ass so hard for that," he finishes with a short laugh.

"What happened to the cat?" She asks with a smile.

Lincoln shrugs a shoulder. "He insisted we take the ratty little thing home, the brat." Looking away, he scratches his chin and his voice slows. "It was pretty sick, though. Died a few weeks later."

Sara's not sure why something that happened decades ago should make her feel so… sad. But the haunted look that crosses Lincoln's face as he closes his eyes and leans his head back onto one of his hands brings the pain back to her stomach, and it's like she's watching him fade away right here before her eyes.

"Sorry," he mumbles without opening his eyes. "Don't know why I keep… babbling about all these stupid old stories and shit. I know you've got other stuff to do than sit around here."

He's slipped back into a tense despondency; she can see the muscles in his forearms tightening slowly, one of his thumbs absently tapping against his knee, and all of her years of medical and counseling training suddenly seem completely inadequate. She wonders, for about the millionth time today, if her father has been right all along about this job, if this is really worth it – if she'll ever be able to do anything here that means something, help anyone more than just physically. She can't think of what to say to him that won't sound like complete bullshit, like a vain attempt at reassurance that will probably come off sounding completely hollow because, really, what is there to say to a man with a handful of hours left that will make things any better?

But before she can open her mouth to try, he says, eyes opening slowly, "It's just all these things, these… memories, thoughts, old stories about me, my brother, my son, my mom… things that happened, whatever." He shakes his head, eyes staring at the floor but not really focused on anything. His pupils are as wide as saucers in the dim light of the cell, darkening the whole eyes, so different from Michael's strikingly bright ones, and she wonders how two brothers can look so alike, yet so different at the same time.

"All these things in my head, these memories I have, it's weird… _scary_," he admits, breathing the word out intensely. "To think that they'll all just be… gone in a few hours. Almost worse than worrying about what's going to happen to me after I die, I think – everything that's happened, everything I think about and remember, it'll all be gone soon, no one'll… no one'll remember them."

It's the first time since they've been talking that either of them has actually said out loud that he's about to die, like they've both been afraid to actually say the words until they roll off his tongue, but that's what's coming - _death, dead, die, dying, death…_ He'll be _dead_ in a few hours, and it just makes her furious at how pointless it is.

"I can stay, talk some more if you'd like to. I don't have anything else important this afternoon." It's a lie, she has several things to do, including a couple of appointments, and she's supposed to be back in the infirmary in a few minutes. But the paperwork can wait, there are others around to cover appointments, and she knows they'll call her if she's needed. "I'll remember for you."

He laughs quietly and scrubs at his face with the hand that had been on his head, and she feels stupid for the cheesy words until he launches softly into a random story about his son, laughing sadly the whole time and not meeting her eyes, voice breaking at points, but _talking_, and at least that's something she can do for him.


	3. The Tide

**Title:** The Tide  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** The last day of Lincoln Burrows' life (Part 3 of 3)  
**Author's Notes: **I started this after watching the previews following ep. 13 (yes, I watched them in slow-motion several times), but aside from the one brief bit of a scene I caught, there's nothing spoilery beyond the first 13 eps and anything unrecognizable (like Sara's family stuff) is totally made up. Also, I have no idea what Louis the Not!Warden's name actually is, but the folks at seem to think it's Patterson, and IMDB agrees, so I went with that.

--

Sara stands in the back of the cell near Michael, who is also lingering near the door. She looks at him for a moment, hoping to catch his eye, but his hard gaze is fixed upon the floor, unmoving, so she turns her attention to Lincoln and his lawyer. The dark-haired woman, who's name she can't remember even though it's been in every newspaper over the past month – she stopped reading the news about the time that she found out that Michael and Lincoln are brothers – is hugging Lincoln, holding it together rather well for someone who, Sara's heard, used to be involved with the condemned man. There are a few whispered words between them and some tears escape the lawyer's eyes, and then Sara looks away, a vain attempt to give the pair some privacy in their final moments together.

_Their final moments together_ is a bizarre and somewhat sickening thought, one that Sara has trouble taking in. She knows what's going to happen, but to see this man standing here, alive and breathing and speaking and living, and knowing that he won't be two hours from now is an idea that's almost too foreign and strange to grasp.

Her mother's death had been sudden and shocking and horrible, but they had no warning of it, obviously, so it was just… one day she was there, talking to Sara about job stress and making plans for Thanksgiving, and the next day she was gone. She'd had no chance to say goodbye, no chance to tell her mother how much she'd loved and appreciated her, because those are things you tend to take for granted, she'd realized later. Sara hadn't even said "I love you" the last time they spoke on the phone, and she hurts every time she thinks about that.

She's always had a hard time getting over the sudden loss of her mother, but standing here now, watching this small family saying their final words to each other, Michael's voice in her head, _I can't touch him knowing it's the last time_, she's not sure which is worse – loosing someone suddenly, without the opportunity to plan or say goodbye, or knowing what's coming and having to count on the exact moment when they are no longer in your life. Sara didn't have to agonize for months over the ending of her mothers life, had no idea that her family would be broken up before the next Christmas rolled around. She, at least, had been able to expect to see her mother the next day, to have a normal amount of hope for the future; Michael has none.

The lawyer is pulling away now, wiping a stray tear from her cheek, and wraps her arms tightly around her waist as she moves to stand back towards the edge of the room. Sara looks over to see Lincoln staring expectantly at Michael, but the younger man hasn't moved from his spot near the door, eyes still set on the floor.

"Michael," Lincoln says, trying to catch his brother's eye, but Michael makes no move to look up, and Sara notices his hands have clenched into fists. It hits her suddenly, Michael's casualness, his flippancy, his easy avoidance of all serious discussion surrounding his brother these past few weeks is not indicative of a disconcern for his brother, but of a desperate desire not to face the situation. But the casual façade, she can see, is slowly crumbling, particularly when Lincoln takes a step towards his brother and Michael shakes his head and backs away.

"Michael," Lincoln says again and keeps approaching the other man, backing him up against one of the cell walls. Lincoln reaches a hand out to Michael's shoulder and Michael bats it away quickly, still shaking his head, and makes an attempt to move away from him.

But Lincoln is twice the younger man's size, and easily blocks his escape, grabbing Michael hard by the shoulders and keeping hold of him despite his brother's struggles to push him away.

"No, no, no," Michael keeps mumbling, still refusing to meet his eyes. Sara's heart breaks a little as she tries not to watch this, knowing that she's watching Michael's heart breaking.

Michael continues to struggle against his brother, but Lincoln finally grabs him by the back of his head and pulls him forward, winding his arms around him and holds fast. After a moment Michael's arms follow, wrapping around Lincoln's shoulders, his hands fisting in the other man's sleeves. Michael lets out a shuddering, coughing breath and Lincoln replies with a hard sigh.

It occurs to Sara that this is the most frantic, emotional, raw she's ever seen Michael in their short acquaintance. Despite several injuries she's seen him through, he's always kept his cool, charming demeanor. Even after loosing two of his toes, crying and shaking and scared, he managed to keep hold of just enough control to keep secret the truth of that "accident." Lincoln, she realizes quite suddenly, although she knows it should've occurred to her much sooner, is a much more important part of Michael than his foot, and the loss of his brother is cutting him so much deeper than anything anyone could do to him physically. Even that morning he was quiet, out of touch, but calm. Now he's crashing.

Sara can see Michael's lips moving now, but it takes her a few moments to catch what he's saying.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says over and over into his brother's shoulder. Tears sit on the edge of his eyes but refuse to fall.

Lincoln shakes his head and pushes Michael a step away, far enough to look him in the eye but close enough to still hold onto his shoulders.

"Just shut up with that shit," he says firmly, shaking Michael a bit. "This was me, all me. My fault. I was there that night, I was gonna… I did this. Nothing to do with you, you understand?" He sounds almost angry, like he's reprimanding his younger brother, and she wonders, not for the first time, what it must have been like to grow up with a brother like Lincoln.

Michael raises his head to look Lincoln in the eye for the first time all evening and takes a deep breath in before nodding slightly.

Lincoln nods back, easing his grip on Michael's shoulders and continues speaking, gently now. "I just don't want you thinking you did something wrong, that any of this is your fault. I fucked up my life, I fucked things up – with you, with LJ…"

Sara bites her lip when the tears finally start to spill out of Michael's eyes. He makes no move to wipe them away, arms hanging limp at his sides, and one trickles down as far as his chin to drip onto his shirt, leaving a silvery trail along his cheek. She wants to touch him, hates seeing anyone with this kind of obvious, naked pain etched throughout them, but she knows he'd brush her off if she tried.

"I wish I'd…"

"Lincoln," Michael says, a rough edge to his voice reminding her of the cold tone he took when she questioned him after the riot. A tone of warning, almost.

Lincoln continues speaking as if he hasn't heard him. "I should've done better with you, should've taken better care of you." Michael's closed his eyes and she notices that Lincoln's not even really looking at him anymore, not touching him anymore, as if he's speaking more to himself than his brother. Michael's fidgeting again, looking uncomfortable and shaking his head, raising his hands to lock them around the back of his neck.

"She told me to take care of you, and I… I took off when things were hard, when Lisa got pregnant. I wasn't there when you needed me – Michael, I'm really sorry, I – "

"Stop it!" Michael barks, and Sara's so surprised that she blinks a few times and takes a step back. She's never seen him do that before, never even imagined that he _could_ raise his voice. "Just stop it, it doesn't… I'm fine."

Lincoln seems to consider his brother for a moment before nodding. "Yeah."

No one says anything for a few minutes and Sara glances from the brothers to the lawyer, who stands with arms folded, looking at the ground with glassy eyes and chewing on her bottom lip, to Patterson in the corner rubbing his creased forehead and looking like he wants to be here just about as much as Sara does. She wonders when someone will say something, but it feels almost too tense in here to say anything at all. How do you put a lifetime's worth of words into 10 minutes?

The silence continues for a few more moments and Sara looks back over to see Lincoln grab onto one of Michael's shoulders again, his hand clenching so hard that the tips of fingers are turning white.

There's a beat before he asks tentatively, "You'll take care of LJ? You know, when…" and lets the sentence hang in the air.

Michael exhales audibly through the unshed tears framing his eyes and replies, "Yeah," on the end of his breath.

The older man nods and looks like he'd like to smile at that. "I need you to, uh… you know, look out for 'im. I don't want him to be like me."

"You took care of me. You did okay," Michael squeaks, his normally cool voice uncharacteristically wavering and small, laced with insecurity and fear and grief.

Lincoln's face breaks into a sardonic smile. "Liar."

Michael doesn't smile back. Time's running out, Sara can feel it _tick, tick, tick_ing by, painfully ratcheting up the tension between the small, mostly silent group of people.

"I don't know how to do this," Michael says finally, voice cracking and looking completely lost as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again.

"I know," his brother replies. "Me neither. It's…"

Michael nods in reply and she marvels at how the two understand each other even without completing a sentence.

Lincoln drops his hand from Michael's shoulder and takes a step back, releasing a long breath that sounds much louder than it should in the heavy silence.

"Oh man," Lincoln says tightly, locking his hands behind the back of his head the way Michael did a few minutes ago. "I don't want to die."

Michael's in front of his brother instantly, arms thrown around him and holding on fiercely, and Sara guesses that there's not much else left to say or do at this point. They stand there and hold on wordlessly until the cell door creaks open and the Warden slowly walks in.

Sara sees him watching the brothers for a moment before he reluctantly says, "Lincoln," looking like he's hating himself. She understands the feeling.

She looks back to see Lincoln lower his arms, but Michael remains unmoving until Lincoln pushes his brother away none too gently. The younger man's hands ball into fists again and for a moment they continue to just stand there and stare at each other looking almost like they're fighting – and maybe they are, but not against each other.

"Tell LJ… tell LJ I love him," Lincoln says, starting to look sick. "And that I'm sorry. That he's a good kid and I'm proud of him and… well, tell him whatever, just, you know… Make sure he knows I love 'im." Michael nods furiously, eyes dry now, while the Warden tries to check his watch inconspicuously.

"Hey, you think she was scared?" Lincoln asks suddenly. "You know, towards the end, when she knew it was coming?"

Michael takes a moment and then answers, "No."

"Yeah. Me neither."

No one moves and the air feels tense and severe when the Warden says again, "Lincoln, it's time."

Lincoln nods and ducks his head as his hands start to shake. Sara can see with a glance that Bellick is pacing just outside the door and wonders fleetingly if Lincoln will fight his escort to the chair or walk to his death calmly.

"Hey, you know I love you, right?" Lincoln says to Michael in a rush, looking up to catch his brother's eye for the last time. Michael nods tightly.

"Love you, too."

"I, uh, I don't think I ever told you, but I wanna make sure you know that I'm, you know… I'm really proud of you. There's nothing you could do – ever – to change that." He reaches over to squeeze Michael's shoulder, as if punctuating his sentence, then steps back and that's it.

Michael opens his mouth to speak but seems to choke on the words, looking like he's about to break, and Bellick's stepping forward to replace the handcuffs on Lincoln's wrists, and the lawyer is weeping openly, and Michael's visibly shaking, mouth tight and eyes clenched shut, and Lincoln's being led away, out of this room and into _that_ one, and Sara _hates_ this. She takes one last look at Lincoln as he shuffles past her, out the door, sweat and tears beginning to streak down his face, and then the door slams shut behind him.

The small group that's left is completely immobile, mute, and Sara doesn't know what to do. Her throat is tight, like she's going to cry, and she feels weak, but maybe she shouldn't feel weak for getting teary at watching a man's last moments alive. Maybe it's okay to let a few tears go when you have to watch someone die. But one glance of the younger brother's tense form and she's completely ashamed and sniffs the tears back inside.

Michael has stopped shaking, but his hands are still tight fists and she can see that every other part of the man is rigid, probably every muscle is drawn tight, though it's hard to tell under the layers of t-shirt and button-down uniform. Sara sees the lawyer step towards him, the first motion in the room in more than a minute, and she wonders if the two of them are close. One hand is covering her mouth while the other reaches out to his arm, but before she can touch him Michael's arm flies up to push her hand away, as if he could feel the touch even before it came.

"_Don't_," he hisses and the lawyer takes a step back, looking shocked. The expression quickly dissolves into tears and Michael moves to lean his head against a wall on the other side of the room. Sara remembers a desperate, awful desire not to be touched, not to be comforted after her mother's death, one that soon transformed into a need to never let go of her father and sisters, and she suddenly understands Michael in a new way, in a way that she wishes she didn't.

Sara watches him release a shuddering breath, reminiscent of the one he made such a short time ago into his brother's shoulder after Lincoln had forced him into a hug. Except it's different because his brother's not here now.

Patterson clears his throat and the lawyer gives a loud snuffle, but no one else says anything while they stand and wait for what's coming. Sara tells herself that she would say something to Michael if she weren't so sure she'd be rebuffed, but if she's really honest with herself, she knows she probably wouldn't have the words anyway. But she'll try with him tomorrow, she thinks, when things have calmed down and there's a little more distance from these horrible last few moments and she doesn't have such an intense ache for her mother and such a queasy pain in her stomach. She can talk to him tomorrow. He'll be here tomorrow. Or maybe he won't be. Maybe he's already gone, like his brother.


End file.
